India needs to forget divisive politics for a while; onus only on Modi govt

India is facing intense, multiple, intertwined crises and needs political space and confidence. It is up to Modi and his govt to create them

It is a nasty truism that the finest political humour is found in dictatorships. It festers nicely in whispers and the thrill of danger. Travels in the generals’ Pakistan and the unravelling Eastern Bloc taught me this.

The current situation in India brings back to me a familiar story in the Soviet Union’s last years. It seems that Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev and Gorbachev are travelling in a luxury saloon on a train across Siberia. At some point in the middle of the vast emptiness, the train stops. There is no track further ahead. 

So, what to do now?

Lenin said